Watch How The Blade Runner 2049 Trailer Matches Up With The 1982 Original’s

Alien: Covenant is set to debut later this month on May 19, but this year will also see the release of another long-awaited sequel to a Ridley Scott brainchild. Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 is currently gearing up for its October release, and the film recently dropped its first (awesome) trailer for the world to see. The preview easily stands on its own merit, but now it seems that it actually syncs up to the original Blade Runner's trailer in some fascinating ways. Take a look at the comparison below.

Looking at that trailer, it is clearly not a coincidence that it lines up so perfectly with the trailer for Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner. Some of the clips, such as establishing shots of a staircase, Deckard (Harrison Ford) holding a gun, or simple dialogue exchanges between characters are simply too perfectly matched to be coincidental.

Considering the fact that this parallel is almost certainly intentional, it is worth diving in to try to figure out exactly what the intention is with this homage. On the one hand, it is entirely possible that the reference is just meant to harken back to the original Blade Runner, and get our collective nostalgia pumping. However, it is also worth noting that individual shots of Deckard from the original film line up perfectly with shots of Ryan Gosling's Officer K -- suggesting an even stronger connection between these characters than a simple shared career path. Whatever the case, it is relatively obvious that Denis Villeneuve still has plenty of tricks up his sleeve for Blade Runner 2049's story.

This is far from the first time that we have seen a trailer for an upcoming movie line up with an earlier film in a franchise. Prometheus' trailer from 2011 used several of the same sound effects cues utilized in the trailer for Ridley Scott's original Alien film, which helped people quickly draw comparisons between the projects. Beyond that, the recent trailer for Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi almost perfectly syncs up to the original trailer for The Force Awakens -- which debuted all the way back in 2014, if you can believe it.

The reason that these parallels work is because fans can now notice them. Audiences have become increasingly adept at picking up increasingly minor details in various sectors of pop culture. By including references or homages that aren't necessarily overt, a movie can get fans talking about what these parallels might mean, and that creates a strong word of mouth for a given project. The strategy seems to have worked because Blade Runner 2049 has turned into a major topic of conversation among die-hard sci-fi fans.

Blade Runner 2049 will debut in theaters later this year on October 6, 2017; stay tuned for more details!